System and method to measure effectiveness of business learning

• US 20080021769A1
• Filed: 08/02/2007
• Published: 01/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services GmbH (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Higgins, John, Swiston, Andrew, Meade, Carole, Lester, Cathy, Stovall, T., Hubbell, John
• Application Number:
  US11/882,556
• Publication Number:
  US 20080021769A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06314 Calendaring for a resource
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/18 Book-keeping or economics
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/00 Electrically-operated educational appliances working with questions and answers G09B7/00; simulators G09B9/00; advertising or displaying in general G09F
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/02 of the type wherein the student is expected to construct an answer to the question which is presented or wherein the machine gives an answer to the question presented by a student
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/04 characterised by modifying the teaching programme in response to a wrong answer, e.g. repeating the question, supplying a further explanation

Abstract

The invention generally describes learning solutions and related methods for managing the learning and training needs of an organization in a manner that is responsive to dynamic business timelines, goals and strategic objectives. Business goals are determined through examination of existing business data sources, so as to tailor learning solutions to business impacts. Accurate computations of return on training investment are provided to allow accurate assessment of the effectiveness of training programs. Also disclosed are networks of learning platforms that together implement the learning solution by providing electronic tools and information sharing capabilities needed by a learning solution services provider to efficiently implement and manage learning efforts according to the business desires of a complex learner organization, while receiving organization performance data in order to compute and report performance measurements.

Claims

1. A method for aligning employee learning efforts with strategic business goals and priorities of an employer organization, said method comprising:

receiving a set of business goals from the employer organization;

identifying performance data collected by the employer organization;

transforming the business goals of the employer organization into performance metrics relative to the performance data;

designating business tracts and initiatives for use in sorting potential learning efforts of the employer organization, the tracts and initiatives correlating to the performance metrics;

receiving requests from the employer organization for learning efforts to train the employees and sorting the requests into tracts or initiatives;

selecting appropriate learning effort approaches for each received request, the appropriate learning effort approaches being subject to a budget allocation for the tract or initiative into which each learning effort request is sorted;

monitoring the performance data subsequent to delivery of the learning effort and computing changes in the performance data caused by delivery of the learning effort;

reporting measurement of the performance metrics based on the computed changes in the performance data.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing the set of business goals and the collected performance data to determine the feasibility of using the collected performance data to measure achievement of the set of business goals.

3. The method of claim 1, the step of transforming the business goals of the employer organization into performance metrics relative to the performance data further comprising identifying performance gaps, where the performance gap is the difference between a current value of performance data and a desired value of performance data.

4. The method of claim 1, the step of transforming the business goals of the employer organization into performance metrics relative to the performance data further comprising identifying sources of data needed to measure the performance metrics, the sources of data being provided by the employer organization.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising determining an appropriate data collection method for the identified sources of data.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising using an isolation mechanism to isolate the effect of the learning effort on the performance data.

7. The method of claim 6, the isolation mechanism being one of:

use of a control group, use of historical data to create a baseline, and use of estimated data to create a baseline.

8. The method of claim 1, the step of reporting measurement of the performance metrics further comprising converting the computed changes in the performance data to monetary values.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising recommending remedial actions based on the reported measurement of performance metrics.

10. A network-based system to provide coordination and synchronization of learning content development, delivery, and management, comprising:

a content development module, the content development module including submodules for receiving input related to learning content and generating computer-deliverable learning content;

an electronic delivery module, the electronic delivery module including submodules for delivering instruction to students, the delivering of instruction including asynchronous computer-delivered instruction and synchronous virtual classroom instruction, the computer-delivered instruction incorporating the learning content;

a data collection module, the data collection module including submodules for receiving performance data from an external data source and measuring the performance data against stored performance metrics, the performance metrics measuring the results of the delivery of the instruction to students;

a resources synchronization module, the resources synchronization module including submodules for scheduling and allocating the utilization of learning resources in the delivery of the instruction and in the development of the learning content.

11. The system of claim 10, the data collection module further including a database for storing performance data for students.

12. The system of claim 11, the data collection module storing performance data for students in the database so that changes in performance data over time are tracked.

13. The system of claim 12, the data collection module further including a submodule for statistically analyzing changes in performance data over time.

14. The system of claim 13, the data collection module further including a submodule for translating statistical measurements of changes in performance data over time into monetary values.

15. The system of claim 10, the data collection module further including stored historical performance data, the difference between the historical performance data and the received performance data being computed.

16. The system of one of claims 10-15, the data collection module further including a submodule for reporting measurements of performance metrics.